droids are NOT overpowered:-)

[impy]

Hello everyone,

haven't played kings bounty for many months..But since it is such a brilliant game one has to come back. Just like coming back to heroes of might&magic back in the old days right?

Similar to my lowest level challenge I was toying with the idea how quickly one can actually finish the game. In the other words, what is the minimum number of fights one has to go through in order to finish the game.

The only compulsory fights are:
Stone 1 - received at the beginning - fights = 0
Stone 2 - Bolo underground - fights = 0 (kite)
Stone 3 - Montero bridge - fights = 2 = montero bridge guardian + defeat Hagni
Stone 4 - Tekron temple of sorrow- fights = 2 = defeat outer guardian + defeat stone guardian
Stone 5 - Verona capital - fights = 2 = defeat Marquis + defeat Demenion
Stone 6 - Uzala - fights = 1 = defeat Rakush
Stone 7 - Reha cave - fights = 3 = 1st champion of arena + 2nd champion of arena + defeat K'tahu
Stone 8 - Elon mirror tower - fights = 3 = defeat Uchkuk + defeat Shenobi + defeat Gremlion
and the last - Greenwort - fights = 1 = defeat Baal

That's total of 14 compulsory fights.
As you can see from screenshots, it can be done.
Any questions drop me a line
Impy

[ckdamascus]

I hoped to never play this game again, because I get too addicted when I do.

I think the first and foremost question is.... how?

Droid split? I figured that there would be situations where entire droid stacks might perish.

Naturally, a lot of flying around to evade enemies.

Was it very hard or tedious?

[Fatt_Shade]

If no1 else is going to say this, i guess i must take that task on myself : Impy you my man are insane (joking But seirously where do you get this ideas ???

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Droid split? I figured that there would be situations where entire droid stacks might perish.
Naturally, a lot of flying around to evade enemies.

Not sure why would entire stack perish ? Since droids have 3 -leadreship% items and can get them to 55 leadership per Repair droid, even with his `low` 26K leadership they can make formidable army, same goes for Red`s, as low as 1400 leadership. It is posible, but as you said - WHY ???

[impy]

Thanks for the feedback boys.
I'm gonna sit down in the evening and write some sort of a guide.
And yes, you got that right - droid split.
As for the red dragons appearing in my army, they were merely a product of mystic egg in one fight. On the side note, I know from experience that with black dragons only you can fairly early defeat montero bridge guardian and tekron temple outer guardian.
Was it hard? It is relative. Newbies will find KB generally hard, casual players will find no loss hard and so on. But there were some nail biting moments - fight with gremlion with only 23% of positive magic resistance, praying that Ktahu will not summon too many armies of gorguanas etc.
Was it tedious? Not really, although fights tend to take longer. Idea is to play defensively and bite enemy bit by bit and rise attack via frenzy. Then you go for a kill.
See you later

[Fatt_Shade]

Seeing this kind of play`s and tactics, one has to wonder : does that repair droid have same stats as those in my game Did you moded them to have zeroing-in ability, or something like that ?
Nontheless good job with this playthrough Impy, you realy get some weird ideas and get ppl on this forum thinking is there anything that truly is `impossible` in this game ?
I might found one such thing, but it must wait on developers making some kind of multiplayer in KB2 like Hot-seat, or anything via Lan 1v1.
My impossible chalange goes :
1) go online,
2) find Impy,
3) defeat him
To make things a bit interesting, you`ll have 10 more lvls , and all dragon army, against his Plant stacks

[impy]

Hello,
thank you for assumption that I would be any good in PvP
I do not use any modded units.
Sorry for delay in producing a guide. here we go:
first, there are only 14 fights in total,so you have only 13 fights to maximize hero level, pet dragon level and work on medals. In the other words, lots of preparation is required.
1) KBscanner.
I'm not sure if starting any new game would do the job. But it has not been tried. I can honestly say i checked about 40 saves and then picked the best one. What i was looking for: physical res - twinkling boots, cuirass, leather dress, scaly set. Magic res - crystal ball, magician cowl, chaos crown, mirror shield. All three droid leadership reduction items, mana items - elkonium, portrait of queen of ice. painskull for increased rage. And as dream - Belt of the victor. Just having scaly set, droid reductions and belt of victor at the same time would probably require going through hundreds of saves, so i gave up on the belt. Now, at the beginning I was not aiming for 14 fights only, but 14-20, so if some artifact appeared in kb scanner it was good enough for me. As the game progressed and I noticed it might be possible to achieve absolute min. of 14 fights I gave up on the goodies which were results of the fights. This way I "lost" twinkling boots, mirror shield and royal hammer. So, if you're going to try this challenge yourself, make sure the items you want are not inside castles or results of quests requiring fighting. The equipment i had you can see on the screen-shot.
2) skills, spells.
Might. Quickdraw is of most importance, you want to go pretty much first every round, to recover damage, cast spells, run to safety etc. Frenzy is a way to raise the attack against bosses. Nightime operations is cheap and powerful. Make sure you play every battle at night. Now the rest in this order- resistance 3, caution 3, revenge 3, heroism 3, onslaught 1
Mind. Neatness 3. After you collect all the treasures around teana and some easier battles, use money to buy level 4-5 items to get runes by destroying them. (if you get crystals, reload) Glory 3. Before Baal fight invest in Holy anger 3
Magic. Distorsion 3, Order 3. push towards concentration 2, definitely have concentration 3 by the time you fight gremlion
Spells - stone skin 3, magic spring 3, calm rage 3, pain mirror 3, turn back time 1, divine armor 3, teleport 1. I hardly cast anything else.
3) Stats. Intellect not needed, Attack not needed (use frenzy to increase), massive defense. Rage is enough 55, for calm rage to work efficiently. Mana - would help but around 60 was sufficient - magic spring.
4) Beginning
Start game, skip training. Now kite all teana apart from Montero (first access to montero is only via bridge). I consider myself far from brilliant kiter but i managed. The easiest route seems to be: debir, scarlet, bolo, rusty, verona scroll on scarlet, umkas scroll on verona by the bridge to Bristol, nameless scroll on umkas by the owl, free sheterra scroll on nameless. Back to rusty, easiest is the scroll guarded by army not far from Zig-Zag or whatever his name is, one by the dragon cave is manageable as well. That should hopefully guarantee Tekron+Dersu. Back to Verona, behind the big lighthouse is the easiest Elon scroll. On elon there is easy Reha scroll somewhere between castles. Get Uzala scroll on usually Dersu. Of course, position of scrolls may vary On all maps collect every leadership rod, free treasure, dig treasures. Idea is to have at least 80 collected treasures before you start fighting, so you get treasure hunter 2 = +5%experience. Collected money from treasures will be used for buying equipment and later for buying items and destroying them for runes. Do all the quests not requiring fighting. Example being - Reha: deliver papers to Degosh, get memory grass, get that nasty soup, get +5rage, -1intellect from it as well, get rune from Red stick. When everything is done, you should be around level 25-26. Spend the runes, get the equipment. Since you would want to start those difficult fights later with maxed rage, buy all rage potions, also dwarven beer, toadstool liquor and plan ahead depending on how many you have. Get the spells, get the droids. Now, if you managed to come across 3 x ancient knowledge scrolls, use them from the very beginning, there is only 14 fights in total to do.
5) Pet dragon. I picked pink one for +5mana. Only improve Ball of lightning, mana accelerator and possibly mystic egg
6) Droids
Unless special circumstances do not separate the 2 droid armies. since you will be swarmed by enemy stacks, you may have difficulty to get them together again for repairing. Once surrounded, droids cannot fly. Yes you can use teleport etc., but mana is scarce, other spells are needed. If there are no strong magic dealers, position droids in the corner, sit back, enjoy his physical res. coupled with stoneskin and rise attack via frenzy. At some point, usually at attack level around 100, you become so strong that you can go out and demolish the opposition. If there are threatening magic dealers, they have to be dealt with immediately - gorguanas, shamans etc. Cleverly position balls of lightning to reduce their numbers, use pain mirror etc. First round move droids to middle of battlefield towards the enemy lines to lure melee units. Second round fly in with droids to force magic dealers into close combat. Here is the something i successfully used in majority of the fights - call it : Impy's 4 round wonder : First round - stone skin, Second round - stoneskin on the other stack. Third round : Magic spring. Forth round: preferably magic spring on the unit which gets more attacks or other spell - time back, calm rage etc. Fifth round: stone skin on first stack again. Stone skin - droids have 20%phys res, scaly 20%, axe of ice 10%, some items + stone skin = 95% phys. res. This way even K'tahu will do ridiculously low damage. Another point of stone skin is +40% defence. Top it up with +15 defence via magic spring, and droids will have 70++ defence and therefore level 1-4 units will do very limited damage. I cannot stress enough the importance of magic spring. Since it many turns to rise up attack by killing enemy stacks, you must make sure you have constant mana flow for 50+ rounds. Only ways are calm rage, magic spring and at the beginning concentration skill. As a rule of thumb - ignore phys. damage dealers, they will only do insignificant damage. Kill them at the end. Only exception can be - you can kill such stack in one hit guaranteed and raise attack via frenzy, or these units stand in the way to your primary target or represent specific danger - Ents and their entangling ability etc. Also, in every battle, make sure you leave as the last enemy standing a unit which has difficult time to get to you = shooter or low speed. So you can repair your droids without interruption and then finish the enemy off.
7) fights in order of difficulty:
a) Montero bridge. I do not recommend casting stone skins here. You WANT to receive damage to get rage and develop your dragon asap. Delay the end of the fight so use pet dragon to the maximum. You will easily gain 6+ dragon levels after this fight. If you get crappy options replay the battle.
b) Outer temple of sorrow guardian. There are only pure phys. damage dealers involved here, so it shouldn't be a problem. Again, work on your dragon, stay in the corner at the beginning, later come out to get hit more.
c) Hagni. Now fighting Marquis may be easier, but defeating Hagni gives you wings and access to Axe of Ice. Fight with Hagni will be very long. Make sure you use -stone skin-stone skin-magic spring-magic spring combo all the time. The only awkward units are gorguanas and alchemists. Stay back and shoot for few rounds to lure the enemy melee units, then fly in to force gorguanas into melee (which is physical). Keep casting lighting balls all the time. What helps here is to cripple goshas so the number of summoned gobots can be easily killed and your attack grows quickly via frenzy. after getting the wings collect the rest of goodies across Teana. Lure the continent scrolls guardians out and fly in to get those difficult-to-get-to wanderer scrolls. Put together Axe of ice, which is by far the best weapon. First pillar = kite, second and third = just fly in and touch it.
d) Marquis. After surviving initial fire balls there is not much else. Marquis loves to cast dispel which is annoying and ruins your mana flow. Try not cast spells for several rounds ( and if so - from scrolls without using mana) and avoid enemy, that way he'll ends up casting his very expensive mass bless.
e) Tekron stone guardian. Depending on enemy army composition this can be very easy fight or very difficult. You cannot change the initial enemy army composition but restart if summoned units are a pain to deal with - dragons etc.Ignore the enemy stacks and immediately destroy summoning tower(s). After that go after nasty units - alchemists etc. Leave the phys. damage dealers to the end.
f) Reha champion of the arena 1. This guy is pure physical damage dealer and should be a pushover, if it wasn't for his killer stacks! It is not uncommon for him to have 1300+ gorguls and two armies of 600+ hayterans. First immediately cast lightning ball on one stack hayterans hoping to shock it and slow it down. Cast stone skin on one droid stack and leave him a bit forward to lure the enemy. The unprotected stack runs away to the corner. Make sure there is no direct line between you and hayterans, they would fly in for their critical attack. Once you survive first round and have stone skin on both droid stacks, it will be much easier. Keep casting lighting balls to bring down those brutal stacks. Stay in the corner with both droids and use my spell combo. One important thing to remember here. You cannot leave as the last stack standing here those hayterans. They would fly in, get killed and ruin your repairing. Make sure you do not kill gorguls completely and leave them. Eventhough they have speed 8 and get their turn before droids, slow them down in those last few rounds.
I'm getting tired here folks, so i continue over the weekend

[Fatt_Shade]

Nice work on explaining your method. It`s common sence, but considering what you did in this playthrough, and lots of patients for right items to show in KBscaner (havent used it before but i get principle).
Kite, kite untill your eyes bleed, and then kite some more I really hate that pussy feeling when doing this, but i simply want to play with units that arent at desposal on curent islands (example want to go full Orc army, but have to wait untill Uzala to get Moldok and some decent troop, f...k that

Some things i learned here : didnt know of using Red branch, or Magic soup in Reha, or same thing with Hephastus sword for runes. Do you get 1 rune or more is possibile ?
Spells and skills are reasonable pick, but is 3 lvl Order magis really necessary ? For calm rage and divine armor, only order spells you used.
Here is some weird situation ; you can cast Precision spell on Beholders, but not on Droids ??? Bless, and Holy anger can be casted on droids, but not precision, why i have no idea but it`s big mistake from game makers. I get it that Divine armor, and Berserk can`t be cast on undead, thay are mindless units. But why not precision on archer unit, no mater it`s mechanical ? This would be great help in your all repair droid game. Same thing goes for uselessnes of assasin in game, 0 benefitial spells for him
You said alchemist could be pain in ass, but only attack they can do is fire bomb, poison is almost nothing against droids. Or you meant mechanics ?
As for reha champion of arena, he had last time i fought him 4 stacks of 450 hyterans. Is that army dependable of your army (leadership), or already composed regarding game difficulty ? Cause i tryed him with solo BK stack, and full army and he had same troop composition. Somewhere around 270K leadership, on impossible.
And i earlier sugested you`ll be difficult opponent in PvP cause you get some weird ideas That is main diference in RTS and Turn based, no rushing, no swarming opponent. Your only upper hand is better tactics, and management of resources you have at desposal.
That is thing i love/hate most in this series great ideas, so many combinations of troops and tactic/strategy at hand, but only tihng you can use it against is ridiculusly easy AI (no matter how many times you play some battle and what you change in your moves, AI 90% moves does same). We must admitt, couple months after game was released and we already had 6-7 impossible/no loss playthroughs all witf totaly different unit builds. I have never played HoMM (just examlpe) against firends in Lan party and used same tactics, because they never did either. I just hope there will be some kind of multiplayer in KB2 . . . correction i REALLY hope there will be KB2

[impy]

To answer your questions:
-Hephastus sword only gives one rune once. Defeat some dragon stack, take the rune out.
-Order magic 3. I see you have not played against gremlion yet. His magic attack does 3000-4000/round (I think), evil towers do magic damage, although lot less. In the other words, you need magic resistance. Droids start with -50%, equip chaos crown +50%, mirror shield +20%, professor Dambior regalia +25%, medal +7%, upgraded magician cowl +20% (or 30?), maybe crystal ball, leather dress... In my game, due to limited number of fights I had only some of them, my magic resistance was 23% - not good enough. Only way to raise magic resistance is to cast divine armor, which costs 25mana. Believe you cannot win against gremlion otherwise. Since your mana as warrior will be total of cca 50, It requires everything working like clock - calm rage, magic spring etc.
- Archer description in this game truly sucks. Not all ranged creatures are classed as archers, and even those who have archer written in their skill chart do not get all archer bonuses. Similarly with companion Trigger giving bonus to only certain archers, same with telescopic set.
-Alchemists are not a major thread. Where magic dealers are major threat, physical dealers just nuissance, alchemists are somewhere in the middle. Huge stack can cause decent damage via fire bomb, plus aftereffects, plus reduced statistics. Poison damage is not that bad, but still, you only have 80% resistance compared to 95% physical.
-I believe enemy armies are set at the beginning, regardless of your army, or your level when you get to them
have fun

[impy]

(continuation)
g) Reha champion of the arena 2 - This guy comes with serious defence and casts divine armor all the time. Not to worry, you[re interested in enemy attacking capabilites not defence. His stacks, although respectable ( i had 50+ tirexes there etc) are all physical dmg dealers so ignore them. Only danger is gorguanas. So from the beginning of the battle fly to them forcing melee and do not stop until they dead. In the meantime cast lighning balls using my stone-stone-skin-magic.spring-magic spring-repeat combo. After gorguanas are down cripple goshas and charge up on small numbers of gobots
that's all the easier fights done...
h) Shenobi. He comes with mainly elven+orc units. Elven units are not major danger here. Worth mentioning are dryads and their disabling skill, so deal with them quickly. I also had 300 druids there which do magic damage but relatively small. So after you're done with orcs cripple druids as priority. Orcs - I had 200+ goblin shamans there and 50+ ogres. Therefore: 1st turn = wait, wait, survive the damage from ranged units + shamans and check. If damage is too much to repair on one unit, cast stoneskin on this unit and repair what you can. Stay in the corner. Next turn - wait,wait and after receiving damage cast time back (which recharges repair skill). Continue with stone skins etc. If you get attacked from all angles invest in tactics skill and find yourself some quiet cormer right from the beginning. If initial damage was not too bad, just proceed as usual with my combo. Third round (after stoneskins are casted) fly in and destroy goblin shamans due to their lower resistance ability.
i) rakush. If rakush army does not have those little goblins in the army ( cannot remember the name - the melee ones whose initiative goes through the roof when attacked) use my setup recommended in Lowest level challenge thread = dryads, black dragons,droids, without enemy getting a turn. If there are no goblins shamans it is an easy battle - just equip some fire resistance and destroy catapults as priority (again with the help of cleverly positioned lightning balls). If there is tons of goblin shamans + catapults and some melee goblins, you[re up for an interesting battle. I have not seen army like that yet, chances are it may be unbeatable.
j) Uchkuk. The importance of chaos crown can be seen here. Not only +50% magic resistance but 50% astral res. as well. Those blood shamans are menace, usually combined with high number of catapults. (melee units are not important as usual). I discovered here the strength of pain mirror spell - the only way of bringing those blood shamans down quickly. So first round wait, wait, receive damage, cast pain mirror, repair. stay back. second round either time back or pain mirror again. after blood shamans are reduced fly in and destroy them. then catapults. I do not have to emphasize that lightning ball will be your best friend here. Note: if you manage to survive nicely first round of brutal attack of blood shamans, cast lightning ball on them AFTER their attack. I f you now follow with pain mirror chances are you destroy the whole stack right away.
k) K'tahu. Stay in the middle to start with to see where gorguanas get summoned. My spell combo is imperative here. With 95% phys. res all units including k'tahu wil do insignificant easy-to-repair damage. Not gorguanas. Their magic mark is a pain and if they manage to squeeze in critical damage from standard magic damage next round it will be serious. There are two problems here.
1) k'tahu mass atack reduces your speed to 1. You're also bound to be surrounded by his summons. In the other words, how to get to gorguanas quickly. You can cast mass haste, teleport, but mana is a problem. Mana management has to work properly for 50++ turns guaranteed. It means permanent stoneskin + source of mana. That's why order magic 3 and calm rage is needed, so you can squeeze in occassional mass haste or teleport.
2) i do not know the details of game mechanics here, but, as you kill his summons he will bring more summons in when their probably some leadership/hit points ratio goes below some threshold. That would mean summoning gorguanas again and more headache for you due to your speed 1 as mentioned above. Never let 2 stacks of gourguanas be on the battlefield, that's guaranteed loss. I therefore recommend just killing gorguanas and ignore the rest of the summons just bite k'tahu bit by bit
l) demenion. yes, 20+ archdemons and their halving ability, 10+ runemages, 400+ inquisitors. I used full setup of wanderer scrolls here just to be safe. Melee stacks are to be ignored, including green dragons, their magic attack is weak. I recommend casting 2 lightning balls in the corner where inquisitors are. Since many units are out of reach of ball, it will go after inquisitors. I brought down rune mages first, then seriously crippled inquisitors and then archdemons. What to do with do archdemons? I helped myself with 2 x mystic eggs in those hard to reach two spots on the battlefield. Archdemons are likely to go after them. Save yor mana, time back will be needed.
m) Gremlion. The most difficult fight. Go there fully buffed .You need to have divine armor on which is 25 mana, cannot approach gremlion without stoneskin on, and need very high mana supply for casting especially divine armors. Stone skin would be nice to have to face those summons. To top it up - druids attack you with magic, dryads have thier special reset ability, ents will entangle you. Luckily, killing any summons will give your tons of rage even after 20th turn. First, make sure there is one summoning tower standing for 90% of the fight in order to bring out summons which is fresh supply of mana for you basically. I let two summoning towers standing for cca 15 turns just so there is enough summons out there for me to feed on. Since it is impossible to have divine armors and stone skin on all the time, i was just shooting at gremlion when i had a chance. Battle took 80+ turns. Mana management is the most important here.
n) Baal. actually fairly straightforward fight. Make sure you have holy anger 3. I was hardly worried about mana this way. Baal attacks are physical (just a bit of fire every now and then). First round stone skin on horsemen, they charge first and are likely to get killed fast, which you do not want. Second round stone skin on knights. third +fourth round stone skin on droids. repeat. That's it

[ckdamascus]

Wow, incredible detail! Now, this is going to sound a bit silly as I have read a lot of your posts and there is one lingering detail I could never understand.

What is cca?